Reunion auctions

"Alumni" is not an audience — it is a category. A class year is an audience: people who were there together, who know each other's names, who are turning up in the same weekend for an anniversary, and who are quietly competitive with the class either side of them.

Everything a reunion gives you

• A fixed date that cannot move
• A milestone number — five, ten, twenty-five, fifty — which is a reason
• A volunteer committee that already exists for the reunion itself
• A cohort that will see each other in person, which drives participation
• Comparison against other classes, which drives it further
• And a genuine emotional occasion that does not have to be manufactured

No other silo gets all of that handed to it, and most associations use the reunion for a dinner and nothing else.

Coordinate with the class gift, do not compete

Reunion classes traditionally make a class gift, and the institution's advancement office runs that process with its own volunteers, targets and recognition.

• Find out what the class gift campaign is before planning anything
• Ask whether auction proceeds count toward the class gift total, which advancement can usually arrange and which motivates the committee enormously
• Use the same class volunteers rather than recruiting a second set
• Report one number to the class, not two

An auction whose proceeds count toward the class gift is a different proposition to a reunion committee than one that competes with it — and the arithmetic of participation rate, which advancement cares about, frequently improves too.

Format

Online, opening a month before, closing at the reunion. Classmates who cannot travel still take part, which matters more here than anywhere — a twenty-fifth reunion has more people who cannot come than who can.

Display a few lots at the event, close during the dinner, and announce the class total from the front.

Build the catalogue out of the class's own years

• Photographs from that class's time, reprinted and framed
• A reproduction of the yearbook page, the team photo, the programme
• Something from the campus as it was then — a brick, a seat, a piece of a demolished building
• A dinner at the place that class ate at, if it still exists
• A tour led by somebody who was there then
• An item from a classmate who became notable, given by them

The reproduction is the item to build, because it is cheap, entirely safe, and specific to one cohort. An original archive object is generally not the association's to sell: memorabilia and archives.

Use the rivalry, gently

Classes compare. Publishing which class years have participated — not who gave what — is a legitimate and effective motivator that advancement offices use routinely.

Keep it to participation rather than amounts, and never publish an individual's giving. In a cohort that knows each other, an amounts leaderboard is a ranking of people's careers.

And capture the non-attenders

The durable value. Most of a class does not come to the reunion, and the campaign reaches them — those who bid, those who shared it and those who simply opened it are all alumni who re-engaged.

Report that to advancement, because re-engagement is the metric they are measured on and it makes the next request for list access straightforward.

General information, not legal advice for your association. Whether you are an independent organization or part of the institution changes who receipts, who owns the alumni data and who may use the marks — the advancement office and your own counsel decide how any of this applies.